J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Aschach, Downstream on the River Danube with the Traunstein on the Horizon; Distant and Closer Views of Schloss Neuhaus Upstream 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 26 Verso:
Aschach, Downstream on the River Danube with the Traunstein on the Horizon; Distant and Closer Views of Schloss Neuhaus Upstream 1840
D30052
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 26a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 198 x 127 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Achau[...]’ towards top right, and ‘Neuhaus’ towards bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page has been used vertically for two nearby subjects on the River Danube, as identified by Cecilia Powell1 with the help of Turner’s inscriptions. At the top is a view downstream at Aschach, approaching midway between Linz and Passau, with the spire of the church of St John the Baptist and St Nicholas; beyond, Powell has noted the outline of the Traunstein,2 a prominent mountain about thirty miles to the south, in the Salzkammergut region east of Salzburg.
Below are distant and close-up views of Schloss Neuhaus, high on the north bank about five miles upstream to the north-west of Aschach, overlooking the first of a series of tight turns; for other views see under folio 23 verso (D30046). Cecilia Powell has noted that as the Danube flows to Linz from Passau, it ‘pursues its course by means of several spectacular bends’, giving Turner the chance to study the ruined castles as he sailed up this stretch ‘looking quickly now upstream, now downstream’,3 as shown in various sketches interspersed with other subjects between folio 17 recto and here (D30034–D30052).4 Although his route upriver was straightforward, his somewhat haphazard use of this book to record it was not. For the geographical sequence of identified views between Vienna and Passau (see under folios 40 recto and 31 recto; D30076, D30058), see this sketchbook’s Introduction.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.241.
2
Ibid.
3
Powell 1995, p.68.
4
See ibid., p.81 note 35.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Aschach, Downstream on the River Danube with the Traunstein on the Horizon; Distant and Closer Views of Schloss Neuhaus Upstream 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-aschach-downstream-on-the-river-danube-with-the-traunstein-r1196902, accessed 19 September 2024.